Saturday, February 7, 2015

There is a wealth of chess information available now on the internet, and arguably the fastest and most useful repository for chess is now found on YouTube. There are many different channels and videos on YouTube devoted to chess, ranging from coverage of tournaments, instructional lessons and lectures, and even blitz games with live commentary.
Below is a list of some of my favorite channels devoted to Chess. I'm not the first to attempt such a list. For example, OnlineChessLessons.net offers an interesting list. My list focuses more on live blitz games with commentary, with my three favorite channels as follows:ChessexplainedThis channel is my personal favorite, and it is maintained by IM Christof Sielecki. He is a very strong player with a positional style and a great approach to the game. There is a variety of videos at the channel, including instructional lessons on tactics, openings, and endgames, as well as coverage of major tournaments and matches. Best of all, he usually posts three blitz or rapid games with commentary every day. I'm quite surprised that Sielecki's channel is not on OCL's list mentioned above.KingscrusherAnother great and active channel by a very strong player. Compared to the positional style of Christof Sielecki, Kingscrusher has stronger focus on aggressive, open, or gambit lines. He also uses a relatively more systematic and sometimes rigid style of commentary, searching for the weakness of the last move and using other interesting decision making devices. He also has an associated website that is useful for navigating his video series. Chess.comThis channel contains a wide variety of videos, all of them of great quality. This channel is actively updated and has many live commentary games, mostly by the entertaining and insightful IM Danny Rensch. There are also 'Hack Attack' session by IM Thomas Rendle. If you like the videos, you should consider joining the main chess.com site and subscribing to their premium video service.Select 'read more' to see the rest of my list. What are your favorite YouTube chess videos and channels? Please feel free to share them in the comments section.